The Bachelor Party

Not many photos of this one, since the crew we were with was pretty well known for their straight up mobbing downstream. This photo is of John and I hanging out at the camp where we spent the night on the Rubicon. That is the look of a big brother.

The Bachelor party crew consisted of Jon Grace (the groom), Tommy Hilleke, Jay Moffat, Jeff Paine (the freight train), Little Dave, Toby McDermott (budget) and yes... myself... I know I'm a girl. But Grace thought it fitting that I come along on his bachelor party.

We were all hoping to get onto Royal Gorge for the Bachelor Huckfest but the water didnt drop out until the week after the wedding so we were left with only a few options. Since the takeout was so close to the house we were all staying at we chose to head to the Rubicon. We had heard a lot of different things about this run, one saying that it was a nice class four run, another saying that there were a few mandatory portages and it was big water class five. The latter was a bit more correct.

Rules for the Rubicon: 1. If you can see the bottom, run it. 2. If you can't see the bottom, have someone get out and scout, then run it. 3. Bring your Toby. 4. If Toby doesn't give a double thumbs up, walk the rapid. 5. Bring a pressure cooker. 6. And a huge bottle of Correlejo tequila. 7. When you swim, make sure its in a pool. 8. Always look ahead of you. 9. Dont make blind right turns...blind... 10. Don't fall in the river.

We were all super stoked on this run. Big water and some massive holes. We had four swims out of a pretty solid crew of paddlers. Jay swam twice, once because he made a blind right turn. Toby swam out of the most rowdy pocket hole after a solid thrashing. Freight Train just plain swam.

On the last portage of the day John forgot his camera sitting on the side of the river and didn't realize it until 5 miles downstream when we got out for lunch. So him and Tommy did the ultimate and went straight back to the put in and ran the whole run in 5 hours the next day. But it won't go unsaid that Tommy broke his paddle and John Grace swam out of the last hole of the day.

If you ever get a chance to get on this run at 1000 cfs, do it. The run is awesome. There are four portages that are pretty mandatory and one that we did was terrifying. But all in all the run was awesome and a great way to celebrate the amazing union of two super cool people.

Next up, photos of the big day!!